Disclaimer: Square, not mine. Wish it was but alas…
Rating: PG-13-ish… may be considered morbid… ::shrug:: One-shot? Clichéd… so? XD
Pairing: Hojo/Vincent. Shut up.
Summary: Hojo does a little reflection.
Notes: 15-Minute Ficlet for the word… well, 'examination', 18 minutes. Oh Professor, it's no wonder at all why Sephiroth is so screwy. ::pets him::

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One little shot was all it took.

Who ever imagined a Turk could be so easily incapacitated by just one little shot?

He smiled to himself as he looked at the prone form on the examination table, shirt unbuttoned and bloodied, the normally pristine clothing now completely sullied by his own idiocy. Valentine wouldn't have been happy with the fact that his garments were so dirtied, the meticulous man he was, but… he was barely breathing now, anyway, so it truly didn't matter…

He didn't want to do it… but the Turk had been interfering. He didn't 'approve' of the experimentations, and then became hostile… Lucrecia offered herself up as a test subject, he tried to explain, but Valentine just wouldn't listen to reason. So naturally, Hojo did what he had to do for the sake of the Project.

…it was such a pity…Vincent was such a beautiful man… pale-skinned… tall, lean, healthy musculature… short black hair, perpetually mussed…

…and those eyes…

The scientist pulled down one of his exquisite new specimen's eyelids and smiled lightly to himself, glad to find those eyes hadn't completely rolled back into their sockets. Hojo could still see those insentient crimson irises… an unnatural color, somewhat disturbing to find in a human, but then again, the Turk was above and beyond normal… too beautiful for words, in fact.

Ethereal.

Much, much too perfect for the life he just finished leading…

Hojo sighed and went to work peeling the Turk's uniform from his subject's limp body, carefully. Vincent allowed himself to be undressed by his cold, professional hands - not that he had a choice in the matter, Hojo smirked - and bit by bit his clothing was removed, each inch of pale flesh revealed even more gorgeous than the rest.

"Valentine, you should have listened," the scientist murmured, taking a wad of cotton from its glass container before drenching it with alcohol, "if you had, I wouldn't have been made to mar such resplendence…"

Hojo went to work cleaning the blood from the bullet wound in the Turk's chest, slowly, the stench of the harsh cleanser burning his nose. But he was used to the scent by now, working with it every day, and besides, it was nothing compared to the smell of Mako. The scientist was aware Vincent never dealt with a large amount of the substance before, as Turks weren't exposed to it as much as the SOLDIERs were, and Hojo couldn't help but frown at that fact.

Valentine's eyes would've looked so much more intriguing had they been a fiery, glowing ruby…

The skin around the wound was slightly blackened from the bullet's entry, and Hojo wondered if he was wrong to use a poisoned bullet on this beautiful creature. The man before him wasn't dead, really, more on the verge of death, allowed only shallow breaths from time to time, ragged… and while the poison-tipped bullet may have burnt Vincent's perfect flesh, the liquid itself was responsible for sustaining the man's life at the moment, so he couldn't really complain…

He would get better soon, of course. After all, Hojo would never let such a gorgeous life form go to waste…

…but the Turk still had to be punished. It wasn't his business what Hojo did, and he knew it. Just because the man was infatuated with Lucrecia didn't give him the right to try and order the scientist around, nor to stop their intentions of moving forward with the experimentations. It was a mutual decision, by everyone involved in the 'JENOVA Project' - Professor Gast, himself, and Lucrecia. They were all scientists, they all knew the risks, and they were all willing to take said risks for the interest of their field.

Hojo sighed once more and leaned down to wipe away the thin line of blood from the other man's lips with one hand, adjusting his glasses with the other. "She never wanted you, Valentine," he murmured into Vincent's ear, stroking the man's silken ebony hair, "I did… it's a shame you were so foolish, though, and failed to see beyond Lucrecia…"

He pressed a kiss upon those deathly pale lips and shook his head, his black eyes trailing down the other man's body, and wondered how he could teach the Turk his lesson for his interference - and what he could possibly add to his punishment, just so the man lying on the cold, steel table would never forget him.

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A/N: …oh come on, Hojo needs love, too, you know…